Another Judge—"Did your people follow you to battle because they considered you inspired?"
Joan Darc—"I said to them: 'Let us fall bravely upon the English!' I was the first to fall to—they followed me."
The Judge—"In short, your people took you to be inspired of God?"
Joan Darc—"Whether they believed me to be inspired or not, they trusted in my courage."
Bishop Cauchon—"Did you not, when your King was consecrated at Rheims, proudly wave your banner over the prince's head?"
Joan Darc—"No; but alone of all the captains, I accompanied the King into the cathedral with my standard in my hand."
A Judge (angrily)—"Accordingly, while the other captains did not bring their standards to the solemnity, you brought yours!"
Joan Darc—"It had been at the pain—it was entitled to be at the honor."
This sublime answer, of such legitimate and touching pride and bearing the stamp of antique simplicity, strikes the assembled ecclesiastical executioners with admiration. They pause despite their bitter malice towards their victim. These were heroic and scathing words. They told of the price of perils and above all of disenchantment that Joan had paid for her triumph. Aye, she and her glorious standard had been cruelly in pain, poor martyr that she was. Her virginal body was broken by the rude trials of war. She had shed her generous blood on the fields of battle. She had struggled with admirable stubbornness, with mortal anxieties born of the most sacred patriotism, against the treasonable plots of the captains who finally brought on her downfall. She had struggled against the sloth of Charles VII, the poltroon whom with so much pain she dragged from victory to victory as far as Rheims, where she had him consecrated King. Her only recompense was to see her standard "at the honor" of that solemn consecration, from which she expected the salvation of Gaul. Her standard had been at the pain—it was entitled to be at the honor. The astonishment of the ecclesiastics at these sublime words is profound. Deep silence ensues. Bishop Cauchon is the first to break it. Addressing himself to the accused in measured words, an ordinary symptom with him of some lurking perfidy, he asks:
Bishop Cauchon—"Joan, when you entered a town, did not the inhabitants kiss your hands, your feet, your clothes?"